7. Top 501 MSPs -- Thank you: Our seventh-annual MSPmentor 501 survey has now closed. Thanks to MSPs worldwide that participated. Results and honorees will be announced in February 2014. Side Note: If you're a CSP, cloud aggregator or broker, participate in our Top 100 Cloud Services Providers research, which opens Jan. 13, 2014.

6. Finding My "Why": I finally got around to reading Start With Why, a book by IT Nation 2013 Keynote Speaker Simon Sinek. The sub plot: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. I'll be back with more thoughts soon, along with some views from IT Nation host and ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini.

5. Angel Investor?: Anybody else notice former Intronis CEO Sam Gutmann is now an angel investor, working with Golden Seeds? I sure did. And it sparked some action on my own part as well. More details soon... But in the meantime, thanks Sam.

4. Happy Anniversary?: Speaking of Intronis, current CEO Rick Faulk will celebrate one year at the company in March or April. Industry chatter suggests Intronis -- a cloud-based backup and disaster recovery provider to MSPs -- remains in growth mode after making some staff cuts and realigning its expenses in 2012. Stay tuned...

2. New CEO, No Announcement: mindSHIFT, the MSP arm of Best Buy, has changed CEOs -- as MSPmentor first reported in November 2013. But to the best of our knowledge, mindSHIFT has yet to issue an official press release about the move. We're extremely curious to see how Best Buy manages mindSHIFT in 2014, amid some rumors that private equity firms might be looking at the MSP.

1. myITforum: Our parent company, Penton, acquired myITforum in 2013. Site founder Rod Trent also joined Penton at that time. If you've got a free minute go check out the site and say hi to Rod for me. And keep an eye on that site...

That's all for now. Thanks for your time and readership. And Happy New Year.